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NBA Announces Finalists For Sportsmanship, Teammate Of The Year Awards

April 2nd, 2025 at 2:28pm CST by Luke Adams

The NBA announced the 2024/25 finalists for a pair of awards on Wednesday, naming the six players who are eligible to win the Sportsmanship Award for this season, as well as the 12 players who are in the running to be named Teammate of the Year.

The Sportsmanship Award honors the player who “best represents the ideals of sportsmanship on the court,” per the NBA. Each of the league’s 30 teams nominated one of its players for the award, then a panel of league executives narrows that group to six finalists (one from each division) and current players voted for the winner.

The trophy for the Sportsmanship Award is named after Joe Dumars, the Hall-of-Fame guard who won the inaugural award back in ’95/96. This season’s finalists are as follows (via Twitter):

Holiday is the only one of this year’s finalists for the Sportsmanship Award who has earned the honor in the past — he won it in 2021. Sixers guard Tyrese Maxey won the award last season.

Meanwhile, the NBA also announced its finalists for the Teammate of the Year award for 2024/25. According to the league, the player selected for the honor is “deemed the best teammate based on selfless play, on- and off-court leadership as a mentor and role model to other NBA players, and commitment and dedication to team.”

The voting process is similar to the Sportsmanship Award — a panel of league executives selects 12 finalists (six from each conference) for the award, then current players vote on the winner.

Holiday is a three-time Teammate of the Year, while Timberwolves guard Mike Conley has also won the award twice, including in 2024. However, neither of those veterans is a finalist this season.

The Teammate of the Year finalists are as follows (via Twitter):

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Pacers Officially Clinch Playoff Spot

April 1st, 2025 at 9:38pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Pacers clinched a playoff spot without taking the court on Tuesday. Indiana (44-31), which holds the fourth spot in the Eastern Conference standings, was assured of making the playoffs when Portland knocked off the seventh-place Hawks (36-39), 127-113.

Indiana has done plenty on its own to secure its postseason berth with the end of the regular season approaching. The Pacers have won nine of their last 12 games, including a 111-109 victory over Sacramento on Monday. They erased a 16-point, second-half deficit to pull out that home victory.

The Pacers will have home court advantage in the first round if they retain the fourth spot. The Pistons are two games behind them with the Bucks, who defeated the Suns on Tuesday, three games back. Indiana trails the third-place Knicks by 3.5 games.

Indiana reached the Eastern Conference Finals last season with virtually the same roster it has this year. The Pacers defeated the Bucks in the first round and the Knicks in the conference semifinals before getting swept by Boston.

The Pacers were the league’s highest-scoring team last season (123.0 PPG). They are seventh in the category this season (117.1) but still have plenty of weapons — seven players are averaging double figures led by Pascal Siakam (20.1 PPG).

Indiana’s playoff success will hinge on whether the club can get more stops against the league’s elite. The Pacers are in the bottom 10 in defensive field goal percentage (47.5%).

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Pacers Will Look To Re-Sign Turner Without Going Into Tax

March 29th, 2025 at 10:59am CST by Luke Adams

The Pacers “absolutely” want to re-sign center Myles Turner when he reaches unrestricted free agency this summer, team sources tell Brian Windhorst of ESPN (Insider link).

However, as Windhorst details, the Pacers’ cap situation would complicate those negotiations. Indiana already has approximately $165MM in guaranteed salaries on its 2025/26 books for just 10 players, not including Turner. The luxury tax line projects to come in at just under $188MM and Indiana has no plans to surpass that threshold next season, sources tell ESPN.

Turner, meanwhile, is making $19.9MM in ’24/25 and will likely be seeking a raise on the heels of another strong season. The big man is averaging 15.5 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.9 blocks, and 1.6 assists in 30.6 minutes per game across 65 outings. He’s also making a career-best 40.2% of his three-pointers on a career-high 5.5 attempts per contest.

As ESPN’s Tim Bontemps observes in the same story, a lack of league-wide cap room could hurt Turner in negotiations, since there will be few rival suitors in position to make a competitive offer for the 29-year-old. Still, it’s hard to imagine Indiana bringing him back at a price that would allow the team to fill out its roster and remain out of tax territory without shedding at least a little salary elsewhere.

Windhorst and Bontemps don’t identify any specific players who might emerge as trade candidates for salary-dump purposes, but the team may soon have to make decisions on swingman Bennedict Mathurin ($9.2MM salary in 2025/26; extension-eligible this offseason), who has been in and out of the starting lineup, and forward Jarace Walker ($6.7MM salary in ’25/26; $8.5MM team option for ’26/27), who hasn’t been a consistent part of the rotation since January.

Forward Obi Toppin, who is owed about $45MM over the next three seasons beyond this one and is averaging fewer than 20 minutes per game, could also be an odd man out, though his longer-term deal might make it harder for the Pacers to maximize his value on the trade market.

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And-Ones: Award Races, Summer Flight Risks, BRI, RFAs

March 27th, 2025 at 7:28am CST by Luke Adams

As we relayed on Wednesday, Warriors forward Draymond Green took over this week as the new betting favorite for Defensive Player of the Year honors, surpassing Cavaliers big man Evan Mobley.

Mobley’s teammates and head coach disagree that Green should be considered the frontrunner and Zach Harper of The Athletic sides with the Cavs’ contingent, placing Mobley ahead of Green (and Hawks guard Dyson Daniels) on his hypothetical ballot in his latest look at this season’s award races.

With just over two weeks left in the 2024/25 season, Harper currently has Shai Gilgeous-Alexander ahead of Nikola Jokic in the MVP race, Stephon Castle ahead of Jaylen Wells for Rookie of the Year, Payton Pritchard ahead of Malik Beasley for Sixth Man of the Year, Kenny Atkinson over J.B. Bickerstaff for Coach of the Year, and Cade Cunningham over Mobley for Most Improved Player.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

  • Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report runs through all 30 NBA teams and predicts their most likely flight risk in 2025 free agency. In some cases – like Seth Curry in Charlotte or Dalano Banton in Portland – the player in question has a relatively modest role, but others – such as Ty Jerome in Cleveland or Russell Westbrook in Denver – have been important contributors. Of course, a handful of clubs have stars or high-level starters to worry about, including Indiana with Myles Turner and the Clippers with James Harden.
  • In a free article for his Substack, Pincus shares some highlights from the NBA’s recent memo to teams, including the fact that players – who have 10% of their salaries put into escrow each season – are only on track to get a very small percentage of that money back in order to balance the basketball-related income split between players and teams. In other words, Pincus writes, a player with a $10MM cap hit for 2024/25, is only projected to actually earn about $9.1MM.
  • What sort of contracts will this season’s restricted free agents sign? Keith Smith of Spotrac digs into that question, making predictions ranging from nine-figure deals for Bulls guard Josh Giddey, Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga, and Sixers wing Quentin Grimes to minimum-salary contracts (and no qualifying offers) for players like Pacers center Isaiah Jackson and Nets wing Ziaire Williams.
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Still Trying To Figure Out How To Optimize Mathurin

March 24th, 2025 at 2:09pm CST by Rory Maher
  • Over the course of Bennedict Mathurin‘s three seasons with the Pacers, there has been a constant effort to try to figure out how best to incorporate his more ball-dominant, one-on-one style within the movement-oriented flow of a Tyrese Haliburton-led offense. As Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star writes, the issue becomes even more complicated in instances when Haliburton is unavailable — he missed time recently with a back ailment. When Haliburton is out, Mathurin, who will be eligible for a rookie scale extension this summer, gets more freedom to try and score however he can out of necessity. The tension between the two playing styles has defined Mathurin’s tenure with the team to this point, Dopirak adds. “It’s two different styles,” Carlisle said, “and I just let him know at halftime (on Saturday vs. Brooklyn) that I acknowledge that if he had the ball every time and we spread it out every time and he was doing the stuff we were doing when we were down in those games (without Haliburton), that he would score and he would get to the free throw line. But in the flow of our normal game, that’s not who we are. We’ve gotta work to bring the two forces of nature together.”
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Contract Details: I. Jones, Bradley, Knox, Warriors

March 24th, 2025 at 12:03pm CST by Luke Adams

The two-year deal that Isaac Jones signed with the Kings when he was promoted from his two-way contract over the weekend is a minimum-salary agreement that will pay him $152,957 for the rest of this season, Hoops Rumors has confirmed.

The second year of Jones’ contract is a minimum-salary team option that would be worth $1,955,377 if it’s exercised.

Picking up that option in June is one path Sacramento could take if the team decides it wants to keep the rookie forward/center around beyond this season. The other would be to decline the option and then issue Jones a qualifying offer, making him a restricted free agent — in that scenario, the club could attempt to negotiate a longer-term contract with him.

Here are more details on some recently signed contracts:

  • Tony Bradley‘s new minimum-salary standard contract with the Pacers isn’t just a rest-of-season arrangement. It includes a 2025/26 team option worth $2,940,876. By tacking on an extra year to that deal, Indiana will carry a ’24/25 cap hit of $330,394 for Bradley. If the center had signed a one-year contract, that cap charge would’ve been $263,939, with the NBA reimbursing the Pacers for the remainder of his $330,394 salary.
  • Kevin Knox‘s standard contract with the Warriors is a one-year, minimum-salary contract. That means Knox’s cap hit is just $263,939, though his salary is $330,394. He’ll be an unrestricted free agent this summer.
  • After officially signing Knox, the Warriors remain below their first-apron hard cap by approximately $257K. A rest-of-season minimum-salary contract signed on Monday would carry a cap hit of $251,942, so Golden State could technically add a 15th man to its roster at any time between now and the end of the season. However, there’s probably no rush to do so quite yet.
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Pacers Sign Tony Bradley To Standard Contract

March 23rd, 2025 at 5:23pm CST by Dana Gauruder

The Pacers have signed Tony Bradley to a standard contract for the remainder of the season, the team announced in a press release.

Bradley had signed a pair of 10-day contracts with the club and the Pacers opted to retain him once the second 10-day expired.  He’s seen action in seven games off the bench, averaging 3.0 points and 1.9 rebounds in 5.0 minutes per contest.

By adding Bradley, the Pacers now have a full roster as the postseason approaches, as our roster counts show.

The 28th overall pick in the 2017 draft, Bradley spent six years in the NBA from 2017-23, but wasn’t in the league last season and had gone more than two calendar years without playing in a regular season game before making four appearances for the Pacers during his first 10 days with the team.

According to coach Rick Carlisle, Bradley has emerged as the ideal third-string center for the club. “In practices and in simulated stuff in the gym, he’s been terrific,” Carlisle said. “Smart, great hands, defensively has a really good feel for what we’re doing here.”

Bradley is backing up Myles Turner and Thomas Bryant. The former UNC standout has earned just over $300K during his 20 days with the club and will now likely receive a prorated veteran’s minimum deal.

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Knicks Notes: Brunson, Kolek, McBride, Playoffs

March 23rd, 2025 at 4:00pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

Knicks All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson, who is expected to miss another week as he continues to recover from a sprained right ankle, has missed New York’s last eight games as a result of the injury. According to Ryan Dunleavy of The New York Post, one benefit of Brunson’s absence has been extended run for some the club’s younger backcourt options and role players.

“You are not replacing Jalen individually,” head coach Tom Thibodeau said. “It’s impossible. We have to do it collectively with our defense and rebounding and playing together.”

With Brunson’s usual backup Miles McBride a late scratch ahead of Saturday’s Washington clash due to a groin issue, veteran Cameron Payne drew the starter, while rookie Tyler Kolek logged a career-high 18 minutes and handed out eight dimes. Kolek often fed forward Mikal Bridges, who was in the midst of a solid shooting run.

“It was big-time for us having Ty out there finding ’Kal constantly,” Payne said.

There’s more out of New York:

  • Kolek’s big night has made him an intriguing possibility for backup minutes behind Brunson going forward. Dexter Henry and Bryan Fonseca of The New York Post wonder if he could wind up being the Knicks’ best reserve option for Brunson sooner rather than later, and what his path to a consistent rotation role might look like.
  • Kolek will probably get another shot at major minutes for the Knicks again on Tuesday, as McBride is considered likely to sit out Tuesday’s showdown with Dallas due to his groin injury, per Stefan Bondy of The New York Post (via Twitter). When healthy, McBride has been solid for New York this season. In 59 available bouts, he’s averaging 9.4 points per game on .407/.371/.817 shooting.
  • At 44-26 on the year, the Knicks seem to be more or less locked into the Eastern Conference’s No. 3 overall seed. Three clubs are jockeying for the right secure home-court advantage and the No. 4 seed behind them. The 41-29 Pacers are currently in that slot, just one game up on the 40-30 Bucks, and 2.5 games ahead of the 39-32 Pistons. James L. Edwards III of The Athletic evaluates the pluses and minuses of each of those clubs as potential first-round playoff foes for New York, identifying the team that should ultimately be the Knicks’ preferred matchup (Milwaukee).
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Central Notes: Kuzma, Hardaway, Haliburton, White

March 23rd, 2025 at 1:45pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

New Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma is adjusting to life on a competitive club after his years with the rebuilding Wizards, as he told Mark Medina of Sportskeeda in a recent interview.

“I haven’t found my total offensive groove,” Kuzma said. “But I’ve been able to be competitive. Defense and rebounding is something that I do really, really well. So that’s what made an impact. It’s just about being able to compete. That’s the best thing for me. And it’s something that I’m very happy to do, especially with this group of people. We’re only going to be better.”

In his 21 contests with Milwaukee so far, the 6’9″ vet is averaging 14.0 PPG, 6.7 RPG, and 2.0 APG. He’s shooting a middling .437/.295/.671, a far cry from the shooting efficacy of beloved former Bucks wing Khris Middleton — although Kuzma provides a major athletic and defensive advantage over Middleton at this stage in their careers.

Kuzma also has a health and availability edge over Middleton, though he continues to be affected by a left ankle sprain he sustained on March 5, per Eric Nehm of The Athletic.

“I’ve been playing on one leg for like the last three weeks,” Kuzma said. “I think the OKC game, I felt pretty good. And then felt much better in Golden State and then felt the best I’ve felt since before that Dallas game where I sprained it.”

There’s more out of the Central Division:

  • Floor-spacing veteran Pistons swingman Tim Hardaway Jr. spoke with Grant Afseth of Sportskeeda at length about his new role on a rising young playoff hopeful. “Just being one of the designated shooters for the team really helps the guard play, especially with [Cade Cunningham],” Hardaway told Afseth. “It helps space the floor—not only for myself, but also for [Tobias Harris], [Malik Beasley], and a lot of other guys that came in with that. So just having that positive impact, bringing that maturity, and having multiple guys who understand what it takes to win ball games—guys who’ve been playing at a high level for many years—that’s key.”
  • Two-time All-Star Pacers point guard Tyrese Haliburton returned to the lineup Saturday against Brooklyn following lingering back issues, per Dustin Dopirak of The Indianapolis Star (Twitter link). It was his first action in a week. “I’ve had back issues my whole life,” Haliburton said. “I’ve worked really hard to try to get rid of it and try to do everything we can. Sometimes my body reacts in certain ways. There was a couple of plays in the Bucks game when I got twisted in the air… It felt bad for like a week.” 
  • Bulls guard Coby White has been on a scoring tear of late, averaging 29.4 PPG across his last 10 contests. In a conversation with Afseth of Sportskeeda, the 25-year-old unpacked his breakout season. “It was just about improving on a lot of different things,” White said. “The summer is long, especially since we didn’t make the playoffs, so I had a lot of time to work.” In 64 healthy bouts for the 31-40 Bulls, the UNC alum is averaging a career-high 20.0 PPG, plus 4.4 APG, 3.6 RPG and 1.0 SPG. He has also taken on more of a leadership role while looking to score more regularly since Chicago traded Zach LaVine to Sacramento last month.
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NBA Fines Trendon Watford, Myles Turner, Andrew Nembhard

March 21st, 2025 at 10:03pm CST by Luke Adams

Nets forward Trendon Watford, Pacers center Myles Turner, and Pacers guard Andrew Nembhard were each fined by the NBA on Friday night for their roles in a Thursday altercation, according to a press release from the league (Twitter link).

Watford and Turner were hit with fines of $35K apiece, while Nembhard received a $20K penalty.

As we detailed earlier today, the altercation began as Bennedict Mathurin was driving to Brooklyn’s basket for a layup during the fourth quarter of Indiana’s victory. Watford and Nembhard engaged in a little pushing and shoving away from the play before Turner entered the fray and shoved Watford (YouTube link via ESPN). Both teams got involved at that point, with coaches and officials eventually separating the two sides.

Nembhard and Watford received double technical fouls for their exchange, as did Turner and Watford for theirs. As a result of being hit with two technicals, Watford was automatically ejected from the game.

According to the NBA, Nembhard and Watford were both responsible for initiating the skirmish, but Watford escalated it when he “delivered a right forearm to (Nembhard’s) chest region.” Turner was also considered to have escalated matters by shoving Watford.

Relative to their full-season salaries, the fines are more significant for Watford, who is earning $2.73MM, and Nembhard ($2.02MM) than they are for Turner, whose cap hit this season is $19.93MM.

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